"The Shadow of Zakhaev will bring us one step closer to our vengeance!"
The Shadow of Zakhaev… who was he?
This man, and she was sure that he was a man, was the man whom Zakhaev had entrusted the Ultranationalist movement to. And from the spies and Intel the CIA had received, this man was the true leader of the Russian Federation, and not Boris Vorshevsky. In fact, she knew that this man was the man who gave Khaled al-Asad access to the nuclear bomb that ravaged the Middle East a few years ago. He was the man that she had joined the Task Force 141 to hunt down, and with every new mission, she knew that she was getting closer to his goal.
MacTavish knew that Shepherd was aware of this elusive figure's existence as well. Ryuka had been serving under the USSOCOM before she went into the 141, under Shepherd and the Commandant of the Marines at the time with her sister. Officially they were the ones who had discovered the site of the nuclear bomb's deployment. Unofficially, they were the ones who were lucky enough to have escaped the tragedy.
From the very first mission, there had been footprints of this Shadow. He was the man who ordered the occupation of Georgia's borders with Russia, he was the man who tortured the Ultranationalist weapons-maker that had tried to defect to the UN. And the Task Force 141 had made this man their top priority. Of course, there was still the famous former-Ultranationalist terrorist, Vladimir Makarov to be considered, but his attacks were so random… so incoherent, that Shepherd decided to make him a secondary target.
This time, they had traced the Shadow of Zakhaev to Pyongyang, while Makarov was on the run after hijacking an explosive-filed subway train in London's Piccadilly Circus, killing 407 people.
"We suspect that he's in nuclear talks with the North Koreans," Shepherd told the Task Force 141, "While Makarov's still hiding in plain sight in the UK."
Ryuka looked at the maps shown on the projector screen, with beeping dots signifying both places where two of these dangerous men were supposed to be lurking. MacTavish knew that she was calculating something, her eyebrow raised as she glanced at the two places, along with the newspaper cutouts of the Piccadilly Circus incident.
"It is a plot…" she said, her voice filled with a sort-of enlightenment. "They could be working together… Makarov and the Shadow of Zakhaev, attacking London to throw our eyes off the talks in Pyongyang…"
All eyes were turned to Ryuka, including Shepherd. "What are you playing at, Lieutenant Algren?" Shepherd asked her, crossing his arms.
"This is only a hypothesis, sir," Ryuka added, "But what if Makarov is not who we really think he is. What if he's just an Ultranationalist scapegoat? In all of our missions concerning the Ultranationalists, we have been chasing Makarov around the world, only to discover that the Shadow has done progress while our backs were turned!"
"Which means, we were fooled for the past three years," Ghost summed up, scratching his chin from under his balaclava. "That doesn't make sense, Reddie. Makarov hates the Ultranationalists! He wants Vorshevsky killed!"
There were some who agreed with Ryuka, and some who went with Ghost, but in the bitter end, it was not of much importance. "Look, all I see here is that we have two situations," MacTavish said. "One is that we'll have to get to Pyongyang, and two, we'll have to sweep London to find Makarov."
"I like the way you're thinking, MacTavish," Shepherd said. "Alright, I'm gonna send two teams of you this time. Reddie, you're gonna go with Roach, Royce and Ozone to Pyongyang to sniff out this Shadow of Zakhaev, and MacTavish, you're taking Ghost, Scarecrow and Grinder to London."
"Yes, sir!" the 141 chorused, and immediately left the briefing room to prepare for their new missions.
Sgt. Gary "Roach" Sanderson
Task Force 141
General Choi's Mansion (Garden), Pyongyang
Gary Sanderson, better known as "Roach" was the latest FNG in the Task Force 141. A Marine who had joined after the fiasco in the Middle East, he was selected because he had been highly recommended by his superiors to Shepherd at a time when the 141 needed more snipers.
A young, enthusiastic soul, Roach was the first FNG to be trained by the Captain himself, and was the only surviving FNG of his batch, which came in the previous year, thus, earning his call-sign. Another nickname that he had earned for himself was "kid" because he was the youngest soldier in the 141, being only 22 years of age at the time of entering.
"Sierra Six, we're all in," Royce reported to Ryuka, who was the commanding officer of the mission, the highest ranked among them. Nodding, she raised her katana, which gleamed in the moonlight, and told them to approach the lavish mansion (once a property of Kim Jung-il) by following the shadows of the numerous trees that graced the beautiful garden. Soon, they were directly under the windows of the mansion's foyer, which was around fifteen feet tall, and three-feet wide. Going prone, Ryuka used the reflections on the blade of her katana to check if the coast was clear.
"I want security equipment scans of hallway Alpha Delta," she ordered Ozone, who was currently on the roof, handling a laptop. He would be their eyes and their ears for the mission.
"Copy that, Sierra Six," Ozone replied. "Got it, there two cameras at either end of the hallway. Glass is not bulletproof, over."
At those words, Ryuka signaled Royce and Roach to out what seemed to be security cameras with their silenced ACOG-sight weapons, and used a glass-cutter to cut out a hole for their entrance, while taking two guards out with the same object. "We're in, Ozone. I need directions to where the General is, right now."
"I'll just take a few minutes. Suggest hiding at the kitchen to your left. It's empty for the time being."
Quickly, the three of them wasted no time in getting into the kitchen, filled with the most beautiful cutlery, cookery and state of the art equipment any proud homeowner would love to show the neighbors. "Gee, I wonder if anyone really cooks in here," Roach joked, earning a little snicker from Royce.
"Silence!" Ryuka warned, placing her finger to her lips. "I sense company… Three men are approaching our area."
"You've got that right," Ozone commented. "Better hide, stat!"
Immediately, Roach and Royce concealed themselves in the shadows of the kitchen, while Ryuka took a kitchen knife along with her katana. If they used their guns now, there was no doubt that their presence would be alerted. "Reddie, get back in here!" Meat told her, despite knowing that she was the leader of the mission. She just shook her head, and stepped closer to the opening kitchen door.
The North Korean guards saw her immediately, but the first one was stabbed with the kitchen knife right in the chest before he could do anything. The second had his armed chopped off with the use of her katana, while the third was beheaded. Meat shot the second one dead.
"There, now we can have some bulgogi in peace," Ryuka jeered, wiping off the bloodstain on her katana on the clothes of the guards before sheathing her weapon, returning to her trusty M4A1.
"Sierra Six, I've found two heat signatures in the room directly above you. There's a stairway to the right of your location."
They all ascended the stairs, and picked the lock (courtesy of Royce) and found a woman there, naked. "What are you doing here?" Royce asked the woman in Korean, to which she replied,
"I shall defend my master's plans."
The woman had a remote control in her hands, and pressed one of its buttons. At an instant, alarms went off.
"It's a trap!" Ryuka shouted, shooting the men that came into the room from a hidden entrance. "Split up, I'll meet you at the extraction point in twenty minutes! Go, now!"
Royce and Roach nodded, exiting the room in two different directions.
She herself ran towards the balcony, evading more than just bullets, and jumped towards the branch of a nearby tree. She climbed down the tree, and headed for the garage, after killing some of the men that managed to follow her.
"Now, my friend, we must leave," said a voice, heavily accented, but a voice which spoke in English, nonetheless. Taking out a voice-recorder, Ryuka opened the closest door to her slightly, and caught the glimpse of a man, dressed in the uniform of a North Korean General. "If the West finds the both of us here…"
"There is little risk, my friend," another voice replied. From where she was standing, she could not see the other man's face, but she could tell that it was Russian. Yet, what man had a voice so light? "They are currently following a false trail in London."
A false trail? In London?
The North Korean laughed. "Ah, you are always the great deceiver," he praised the Russian. So, Vladimir Makarov was not in London, if so, where was he? "I cannot wait to see the faces of the CIA when they realize the truth of your location."
The Russian then joined in with the general's mirth. "Indeed," he said. "By then, we shall have a greater… hole in the world. A new one, which will poison much of the world's precious resources…"
Ryuka took a risk, and opened the door slightly bigger. She could see the two of them bending down, as if they were signing some sort of agreement. She had to stop it, and the moment after she clicked her recorder to stop the recording, she shot the arm of the North Korean General.
"Go, now!" the Russian warned. "I will hold the intruder off!"
The North Korean quickly left, while the lights of the garage were all turned on, causing Ryuka to dive right to the side of a black car. From where she was, she could see that she was now surrounded by countless beauties of the automobile world. Rolls-Royces, Mercedes Benzes, Porches, Ferraris… The General was rich, and clearly, he flaunted his wealth. One of them, even had solid gold rims.
"Reddie, where the hell are you?" Roach's voice shouted through the comms. "We're freakin' low on ammo here!"
"I am a little tied up here, Roach," she replied. "Give me ten more minutes."
The Russian, however, already heard her. "You will have to come out now, my dear," he said, sweeping every corner he passed. His shadow was getting dangerously close to her, and Ryuka knew that she would have to reveal herself sooner or later. With only sixteen bullets on her person, Ryuka knew that the only weapon she could use was her katana.
Thus, she stood up with her bladed weapon unsheathed. "Ah, it looks like our little kitten has finally decided to show herself," the Russian teased, holding an AK-47. How… stereotypical of him.
"Come over here and we shall see who the real kitten is!" Ryuka threatened. With those words, she broke into a run and jumped as high as she could. Bringing her katana down towards the shoulder of the Russian, she aimed to cut him in half horizontally, rending metal parts instead of flesh and bone. Impossible! No one had ever withstood the Dragon's Hammer before!
In her awe, she could see that man's eyes. They were heterochromic: one was a dark blue, of sapphire hue, and the other was green, reminding her of emeralds, eyes that only managed to place a strange aura of cold death about him. She twisted her katana, embedded in his rifle, causing the weapon to shatter into two pieces, as she sheathed her katana for another attack.
"Interesting," he said. "You are one of the Daughters of the Dragon," he noted, looking at her. "I thought that your line was extinct."
"Well, you obviously thought wrong," she hissed. Once again she attacked, a false strike using the sheath of her katana, but he could see what she had intended to do. He ducked, causing her to miss his lower back, an attack that should have slashed him right there, ending his life then and there.
Taken by surprise, she found herself restrained by him, with her hands held behind her waist, locked by his powerful grasp. "Who are you?" she asked him, poison lacing every word she uttered.
"I can be all that you wish me to be, darling," he told her, running a hand around her neck, tenderly, when she supposed that he would have strangled her. In a moment without thought, he brought his lips to hers, kissing her. Ryuka was immediately alarmed, but closed her eyes when their tongues met.
She did not know how long had passed, but when she could sense from his Ki that his guard had been let down, she elbowed him at the side and grabbed her katana which was lying not far from her. As he was struggling to stand, she slashed him in the knee, and made her escape. A rope was being thrown down towards her from the helicopter that they were deployed from, leaving the Russian to run out of the garage in pain…
"What happened in there?" Royce asked her. "Reddie?"
"We… have been compromised," Ryuka stuttered. "That Russian saw me."
"Are you positive of this?" Shepherd asked Ryuka the moment her team returned to the Task Force 141 land-base, where she was giving him a debrief of the mission after MacTavish did. "Are you sure that you got a good look at the Shadow of Zakhaev?"
She nodded her head. "He has dark hair and heterochromic eyes," she reported to Shepherd. "But it is a common rarity, sir. Anyone could…"
Shepherd interrupted her by holding up his hand. He slotted a disc into the computer before them. "Look at the screen, sweetheart. MacTavish and his team recovered Makarov's speech which he'd played after the attack."
"You would do well to understand that this will not be the first from me… Revenge is like a ghost, it takes over every man it touches… Its thirst cannot be quenched until the last man has fallen… The world's men of action would look in wonder, how it came to this. You might be able to destroy me… But the beast will eventually come for you…"
Ryuka put a hand to her mouth, covering her shocked gasp. That man, Makarov, who had delivered the speech in London was the man she had seen in Pyongyang.
Vladimir Makarov was the Shadow of Zakhaev.
HAN: As ecto1b would have put it "DUNN DUNN DUNN" ! How did you like this chapter? Sorry for not updating for so long, I was working on my collab-fic with ecto1b, called the Redheads of the 141, where we mash our OCs together. GO CHECK IT OUT, PLEASE!